Tryst
by SlvrSoleAlchmst1
Summary: Suzaku, taken aback again by his emperor's striking beauty, contemplates a question that plagues him deeply in light of Zero Requiem. Is it better to love and lose... or simply never love at all? And does Lelouch agree with him?
1. Chapter 1

_Author Note : I'm trying to post here on FFN for the first time using the FFN app. Interesting. It seems regardless of what I do, the formatting of italics never comes through and I have to go redo them ALL, one by one. /twitch/_

 _ANYWAY. With the three compilation Geass movies on their way, and the third season of the show by now announced... I have mixed feelings, predictions, and fears that I could talk about forever. PM me, if you're inclined to engage. Otherwise, I will share the one giant thought most prominent in my mind - and the one that pushed me to finish/post this fanfic._

 _If there's a season three, and Lelouch is actually alive, or otherwise comes back in it... that DOES THINGS to the integrity of - or at the very least, the result of - Zero freaking Requiem._

 _Zero Requiem is the most epic, bittersweet, fanfic-inspiring, emotional damn plot twist I've ever seen in anime. So I figured I'd better start getting all my fic about it out there at last, and exploring it and enjoying it some more... before the canon ushers in a change that severely affects my ability to do so._

 _Therefore, have an angst-ridden piece, in which Emperor and Knight of Zero interact (yes, eventually naughtily; who do you think I am?) and Suzaku debates one of my favorite questions. "Is it better to love and lose, or never love at all?"_

* * *

In all Suzaku's life, the sun had never looked so perfect. It streamed earthward in rays of yellow, lighting up the pollen in the air as if the pollen granules were gold dust, instead of simply an occasion to sneeze. But it was neither the perfection of the sun rays nor the pollen that made Suzaku's breath catch like a door he couldn't seem to close. He pulled up short on the garden walkway because of something else entirely.

The brightness had gilded Lelouch's profile, where Lelouch stood yards away from him — up the stairway and under the gazebo. In his white, bejeweled attire that threw the sun rays back skyward, like hymns, Lelouch made light seem _meant_ for him. His stillness turned him from a man into a gilded, waiting instrument.

Or so it seemed, as Suzaku stared like he gaped at heaven's shining orchestra pit.

The _truth_ was that Lelouch would never be playable. Suzaku realized that, staring. And therefore he could not compare Lelouch to an instrument upon which he might rest his fingers, and just… lose himself. Just lose himself — in peace and song, forgetting what they'd planned to do.

Lelouch did not let anybody use him. Lelouch took whatever control he could grasp and made all moves in life himself. _He_ wrote the songs Suzaku listened to. Right now, Lelouch controlled the entire world through Geass, and Suzaku was his personal and most powerfully stationed knight. If anybody was an instrument, it was Suzaku, not Lelouch. And Suzaku was the kind of instrument that spilled blood, only — uncompromising sword — rather than ushering in the respite of a song.

Indeed. Suzaku swallowed, hard. Before long, Suzaku would become Lelouch's personal murderer, choking out the possibility of Lelouch existing like an instrument of song forever. Suzaku would snuff Lelouch out with his light, and turn Lelouch into nothing but a symbol of the world's hatred, for all the world to overcome. Suzaku would do his part, to ensure one of nature's most basic laws remained upheld – the law that said beautiful things on earth were never made to last. Not even the finest, best-made, most beautifully gilded instruments that God sometimes crafted in the shape of people. People exactly like Lelouch.

Suzaku kept looking up the stairs, at the person he watched standing there. Beautiful things must expire, but why? And why so often, at the height of their bloom? Was that why Suzaku had pulled up short, breathless? Because he just couldn't stand it?

Lelouch had _chosen_ to expire. And Suzaku had agreed to bring it about, because it was their punishment. And yet he still couldn't stand it. That, more than the feel of the fine breeze, was what made Suzaku pull up short, still so many steps from the stairs. That, more than the lazy heat and heady floral scent of the gardens, that more than Lelouch's ethereal beauty and posture of peace, _that_ was what recalled him to the door to his emotions and cracked it open horribly.

Suzaku's feet scuffed, but remained at a halt. And he tried – he tried so hard – to close the damn door.

But it would never close again. From now on, now that they had planned Zero Requiem, it would always hurt Suzaku to look at somebody he knew would just be… gone.

Did Suzaku have mixed feelings? Yes. But people grew, and feelings changed. If his own changed in time, he'd lose. Lelouch would be _gone_ ; there'd be no changing this.

There'd be no telling Lelouch, _I've forgiven you,_ or _I'm sorry,_ or _Thank you for doing this for the world._ There would never be a chance to say, _I miss you,_ or a chance to make Lelouch understand that while Suzaku had agreed to Requiem, and did hate Lelouch, and did demand recompense… Lelouch still meant more to Suzaku even now than any other figure in his life of eighteen years. Suzaku would never get to say, _I think I've learned I can love you._ He could not change later what Lelouch thought of him now, or the relationship they had; they had no future together. All involving Lelouch would be frozen in time, a fixed point for Suzaku.

And Lelouch? All he had was _now_. Lelouch would bring peace to the world, and then perish.

So Suzaku swallowed again where he stood, between an azalea past its prime and an unwieldy rhododendron bush he was surprised the gardener hadn't trimmed. His heart twisted inside his chest. There wasn't a way around what they had planned; Suzaku had agreed, and he couldn't change that.

But he could acknowledge it. And he could imprint on his brain all of these final moments he saw. Right now, as if Lelouch would make the God that had put him on earth acknowledge his untouchable sacrifice, he stood kissed by heaven's light – anointing himself with its splendor, as it recognized and tasted him.

Suzaku would _remember_ this sight, as much as it pained, tempted, awed, and unnerved him.

Soon he began walking again. He took his time climbing to the gazebo.

"You make as if we've been granted forever," Lelouch said, when Suzaku finally got close.

A smile played across Lelouch's lips. It was a wry smile, Suzaku thought, as Lelouch just continued to look at the sky. One lone, fluffy cloud seemed to hold Lelouch's attention.

Then Lelouch flicked his gaze at Suzaku once more. Suzaku paused again on the last couple of stairs, before stepping into the gazebo's entrance.

His gaze caught on Lelouch's hand. The hand rested familiarly on the gazebo railing, as if Lelouch would speak to the whitewashed wood through touch and nothing more. How many conversations had he carried out, alone up here?

"I came the moment I received your urgent summons." Suzaku lowered his eyes and bowed. "I just… took the meandering path. Forgive me."

He had wanted to clear his head in the garden. Little had he known his emperor would fill it again, merely by standing in a patch of sunshine.

His formality made Lelouch smile some more, with more irony than Suzaku believed fair — even considering his own inward state that he sincerely hoped Lelouch didn't discern. Lelouch said, speaking at the sky, "Too slowly. But it's still all right. In fact, I think I like that you didn't come running, even though the messenger told you it was urgent."

Suzaku remained quiet. Lelouch _liked_ that Suzaku had creatively interpreted his orders — by indeed coming immediately, but by the _longest_ route possible?

Suzaku had deliberately wasted time. And time, he had just established yet again, was not a thing that Lelouch had.

But if Suzaku hadn't tried to shake his constant thunderclouds, the little time Lelouch _did_ have — and with Suzaku — would get rained on. Suzaku didn't desire that.

He hid his heart behind a question. " _Why_ do you like that I didn't come running?"

Lelouch watched a butterfly wheeling around. "I'd lose my nerve," Lelouch told him, "if you began acting frantic." His smile was still there, a little bit sad. "I couldn't stand if you did anything differently, simply because we know I'm going to die. The truth is I'm a bit relieved you found a way to deliberately misinterpret my orders again… in the way you've been doing, so religiously, since acknowledging me as your new emperor."

Suzaku twitched; the call-out wasn't wrong. He often expressed visible defiance, without ever quite disobeying orders. Emperor Lelouch would command something like, _Leave off eating this instant, Kururugi. I want to discuss something important with you now._ Suzaku, annoyed that Lelouch seemed so casually to flaunt his authority over his knight, when it wasn't directly necessary to Zero Requiem, or in front of people they needed to make a show for…. Suzaku would find ways to teach Lelouch that he was nobody's puppet.

He thought, perhaps, it was because he didn't _always_ want to be somebody's blood-spilling sword-instrument. When off the battlefield, when they were alone, did Lelouch have to treat Suzaku so… distantly?

He'd 'leave off eating this instant' by dropping his fork from midair — the moment the order finished falling from Lelouch's lips. Then, when his food made a mess on the table, or on the floor, Suzaku would shrug, as if to say, _That was your order, wasn't it? I obeyed it, to the letter._

It was petty, Suzaku knew. But Lelouch — stubborn, and always in power and control — could be reached through little else but total surprise.

And too, the Knight of Zero was _not_ a Geassed minion, like the rest of the palace. Suzaku followed orders, yes, but that didn't mean he enjoyed doing so for Lelouch at every moment of the day.

But defiance hadn't been Suzaku's aim _this_ time, when he'd dallied rather than rushed to his emperor. Suzaku watched the play of sunlight in Lelouch's complex, violet eyes. Should he admit it? Try to explain himself? Did Suzaku want to take the time… or might he simply gaze at Lelouch some more?

"How are you, Suzaku?" Lelouch asked him.

 _Suzaku_. Not _Knight of Zero_ , or _Sir Kururugi_. The sound of his name made Suzaku bite his lip. Lelouch had changed his tone, and spoken like the emperor requesting a report, but his form of address was one used between friends.

Lelouch hadn't addressed Suzaku like this since they'd settled on their agreement inside C's World. What was Suzaku supposed to say? Was Lelouch trying to be gentle with him?

"I'm not sure what you mean," Suzaku replied. He did not know to whom he was speaking, really. How could Suzaku determine the proper reply?

Lelouch wore no emperor's mask at present. At least not that Suzaku could see. But Suzaku could not tell what mask Lelouch was wearing now instead of that. And could Suzaku even trust his own interpretations any more? Who did Suzaku speak as, really? Was he the knight, the murderer, or the friend? Where had the lines gone between them any more?

It felt like every line – and even their personalities – had been redrawn too many times; Suzaku could no longer find where they stood. In any situation, they knew _all_ each other's masks, by now – and so to be together these last days felt like confronting and assessing a host of Lelouches and Suzakus, rather than one set of them. It was a miracle they weren't insane.

Childhood friends. Classmates. Enemies.

Knight of Zero and Emperor.

"I mean," Lelouch said, "that you look rather strained. I'm inquiring after the state of your mind." Was he a little tart, or just concerned? Or was that melancholy in his eyes?

Suzaku parted his lips, but he still didn't speak. Instead he watched the golden buttons that dripped from the arms of Lelouch's attire.

Lelouch sighed, and then he ruffled a hand through his loose raven hair. He seemed glad, a little, not to be wearing his stiff, pointed hat. Did Lelouch enjoy being free of its burden? Free of all such a clear crown signified? Lelouch leaned on the railing next. "Does being alone with me cause you so much tension?"

Suzaku realized he still stood at the gazebo entrance, and that his body appeared stiff. He made a stark contrast with Lelouch's relaxed and peaceful posture. He forced his shoulders to loosen.

"It's just… not easy to relax, before I'm sure why you called me out here. And so urgently. What did you need?"

Lelouch's slow blink made him look even _less_ urgent than he had looked when Suzaku had entered. "Are you greatly opposed to some afternoon pleasure? I watched you come up. You admired the view." A hand gestured lazily out the archway, to draw Suzaku's gaze again to the sunshine.

That view? No. _Lelouch_ had filled Suzaku's eyes.

Suzaku pressed that truth aside. "I do think the gardens are pretty," he said. "If you brought me out to look at them, I don't mind doing so with you." He had seen rain on the forecast. Perhaps the urgency was that Lelouch wanted to walk the gardens and discuss something important, before a storm hit them. "Excuse my seeming hesitation," he added.

"Then you want to? You really would stay here with me?" Lelouch's disbelieving intonation didn't suit his commanding appearance. Suzaku stiffened again, confused. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather spend the afternoon in training, like you planned to?" Lelouch gestured to Suzaku's attire.

Suzaku hadn't donned his cape – and he had also left his gloves behind. His collar lay unzipped at his throat, but only a little. He knew what was proper. In the sun, his dark blue pilot suit gleamed like deepest ocean water. Suzaku had indeed been about to change into his hakama and dogi instead, and do a few figures with his wooden sword. But it seemed Lelouch was testing him.

Lelouch wanted Suzaku here.

Suzaku couldn't read Lelouch for _sure_ , however, so he reverted to manners, and didn't agree too enthusiastically. "I have all day to train. I can go back and dress more properly, to escort you through the gardens if you'd like it. Whatever you wish takes priority over what I had planned for myself, Your Majesty."

"I see." Lelouch told him. "I _would_ like it." It came thicker. Something in Lelouch had changed, or browned like the edges of a bruised flower. "But there's no need to leave just to spruce up your clothes." Lelouch seemed to recover himself. He paused. "You're fine as you are, Suzaku."

Something in the way Lelouch said it made Suzaku bite his lip again. Lelouch sounded compassionate and warm, despite his momentary lapse into stiffness. Unbuttoned, almost.

It struck Suzaku as curious.

How long had it been, since Lelouch had felt unreserved enough to let Suzaku see him showing any emotion beyond determination? How long had it been, since they hadn't argued about ends, means, tactics, Nunnally, CC, Zero Requiem, or the power of Geass? How long, since Lelouch had looked straight into Suzaku's eyes, and spoken something other than a curt, necessary order? He was _asking_ Suzaku to spend time inside the garden with him.

Lelouch was indeed being gentle with him. But why? Suzaku's heart began beating a little faster, and it pained him at the same time it quickened him. Lelouch was redrawing their lines, again – setting them down in different roles that made Suzaku's sanity wind tight.

"Lately you always choose to say nothing," Lelouch told him. "Why not try saying everything for once? Why don't you say whatever you desire? Bottles under pressure tend to crack." But this time, Lelouch didn't add anything like, _I need you at full capacity, Knight of Zero. Your duty is to function, and cleanly._

Lelouch was telling Suzaku that right here, right now, they were equals. That now he wasn't playing emperor. Lelouch was saying Suzaku should feel free to unburden himself, even.

That perhaps Suzaku _ought_ to, because he'd have no outlet, and no solid closure otherwise.

But… could they do this? Could they just… talk? Was this Suzaku's chance to express all his fears about what things he might long to say to Lelouch, in years after, once Lelouch was gone? If Suzaku dared to voice those things now, so early…. No, he just couldn't. How could they _not_ affect Zero Requiem?

Zero Requiem did not need to be made harder than it already was. Suzaku couldn't stand this. Couldn't stand it.

Lelouch's gaze perused him when Suzaku offered no reply. His eyes were tender, thoughtful, poised. "Suzaku," he whispered, "if you keep looking at me with such an expression—"

"What expression?"

"Like you're going to cry."

Suzaku lifted fingers to his eyes. He _wasn't_ crying. Never in front of Lelouch vi Britannia.

"It's just the light, Your Majesty."

Suzaku didn't feel like he could talk. But he didn't mind if Lelouch did.

Part of Suzaku only wanted to watch Lelouch speak and move in this sunlight forever. Glimmering this way, glittering, looking just as warm as the sun rays suggested. Arresting and stunning, less tarnished and tragic. What Suzaku wouldn't give to save it – this meeting now, in a perpetual loop. Lelouch so lusciously, liquidly lovely, present for Suzaku to admire or resent as he pleased – without the need for him to speak, or justify his devouring of the scene. Without having to sift through and define his many mixed emotions.

Lelouch's fingers drifted, and Suzaku moved his feet to shift away. Lelouch had come too close to him. "Don't lie to me, Knight of Zero."

Suzaku straightened. "Your Majesty." These royal lines were easier. Easier not to step across.

Lelouch touched Suzaku's chest. Then the touch grazed – absently – the red jewel on Suzaku's uniform front, the one at the navel. Lelouch's hand then moved just a hair lower, while Suzaku's brain tried to process the movement.

The brief stroke of fingers trailed down the center of the jewel, and just past it, but then no farther. "Suzaku..."

Suzaku moved away and spoke quickly. "I'm all right. Don't concern yourself with me."

Lelouch's eyes refused to meet with his. A nearly undetectable hitch of breath accompanied Lelouch's words. "If you're all right at present, then I'm going to take a risk. Humor me."

"Within reason," Suzaku replied. He wasn't sure, however, he was in any state to pretend he knew reason.

Lelouch laughed very quietly. He said, still looking at the floor, "You hate when I assert my will with you. But would you let me do it, just a little more? I asked you here urgently not only to admire flowers. I wanted — I needed — you here. Beside me."

Suzaku did his best not to show skepticism on his face. He watched Lelouch swallow.

"I mean this as a tryst," Lelouch told him. "A tryst with my exquisite knight." His eyelids fluttered. And then, as if defiant, he turned his gaze to Suzaku's face. "Will you allow me to have such a thing? Would it satisfy you as well, Suzaku Kururugi?"

Suzaku frowned. "What—what's a tryst?" Why had Lelouch's cheeks flushed in that way? Strawberries and cream now, his fine complexion. Suzaku had to look away.

But Suzaku did not expect his question to cause quite the jolt it did.

"A tryst?" Lelouch's eyes blew wide. "You don't—? It's—" and Lelouch stopped. The gazebo's atmosphere seemed to change.

The change was not one Suzaku could put words to. Lelouch looked unable to speak. "It's something you can't say to me?" Suzaku prompted him, flatly, to keep hidden the further quickening of his heartbeat.

He wasn't certain what had shifted, but the inside of his throat felt clogged, and sticky, as if with sickening honey. Lelouch did not look better off.

But why did Lelouch appear also as if Suzaku had suddenly slapped him? The berry flush had left his cheeks as fast as juices wiped away from a table.

And why had, a moment before, Lelouch laid fingers onto him? Suzaku and Lelouch had not exchanged a single physical touch like that since—

"A tryst is a romantic, private rendezvous between lovers." Lelouch announced it tonelessly. As if that were the only way to do so, now.

Suzaku registered it. _Lovers_.

His honey-throat seemed to worsen. He made a little choking sound. 'Lovers' was a line they hadn't crossed in some time – if truly ever they'd crossed it. They had only… only ever….

The mask of 'lover' was not one either of them had worn comfortably. Or well. Or even very long at all. Suzaku did not think it wise to go there now, no matter how quickly his heart was pounding.

The decision of Lelouch's fate had already been made, and sealed. Suzaku had Zero's mask waiting upon his damn _bedside table_. It was hard enough for Suzaku to commit himself to preserving Lelouch's memory, dedicatedly and quietly, by just gazing, and to follow all his myriad orders. To ask Suzaku to navigate waters that ran so much deeper on top of all that…. How could Lelouch dare? How could Lelouch _dare_ … when Lelouch would only be gone?

Suzaku dug his teeth into his tongue, calling himself to focus better. They didn't even know _how_ to be lovers. Had a teasing exchange, a flirtation, a conversation, and one hesitant kiss even _counted_ as a foray into having been lovers before? How could Lelouch jump so quickly into such intimate territory? If Lelouch was only suggesting this — rushing it — because he knew he had no _time_ —

Was that reason enough to justify slamming Suzaku with the idea?

…Was it reason enough for Suzaku to give in, and let Lelouch have what he asked?

Lelouch had admitted to an attraction, back in school once, at Ashford – long before Zero had seized his attention so fully. Long before Suzaku had grown involved with Euphy and learned to hate him. _"You've grown up well, Suzaku. I've been glad to see you here at school. In truth… you're attractive, and it's distracting. Who knew I'd prefer the jock type?"_ Suzaku remembered the way Lelouch had paused, waiting to see if Suzaku would grow horrified… and whether he would need to find a way to pass his comment off as some off-color joke.

 _"Do you mean that?"_ Suzaku had asked instead, and very, very seriously.

Lelouch had closed his eyes, taken a risk, and muttered very simply, _"Yes. And that is something I would like you never to tell the Student Council. Or Nunnally."_

Suzaku had grinned a little and returned the sentiments immediately. _"I also think you're beautiful, Lelouch. Except I never thought I would be able to tell you that directly."_

And at that, just for a moment, as if Lelouch could hardly believe it… as if Lelouch wished to test Suzaku's words… Lelouch had turned their gaze-exchange into a brief, experimental kiss.

Suzaku could still recall that kiss. After it had fired their lips, they'd both been flushed, and quite giddy. But they'd agreed it hadn't been the time to risk their friendship by pursuing the attraction any farther.

Both of them had been busy, after all – Suzaku with the military, Lelouch with lying to the world as Zero. Admitting the attraction and laughing about it, feeling relieved, was enough of a shared secret at that point to bond them, and erase any awkwardness that had clung to them after the rooftop Arthur incident and Suzaku's being bullied in the locker rooms.

What they'd both needed most was a _friend_ , not a lover. And it seemed now eons had passed since they'd even considered it. War changed so much. Killing changed it. How could Lelouch so easily hearken back?

Suzaku reflected. The _sunshine_ still reflected too, off his mortified emperor. Suzaku looked at the tailored grass. Lelouch brought their chemistry up again now because he finally wanted to pursue it, despite everything? Did he really think it such a good idea?

Suzaku rather hated it.

While Lelouch cleared his throat, and Suzaku swallowed, a flock of birds took flight from in the hedges. Their flapping wings beat the sky as haphazardly as Suzaku's mind flew… and his chest persistently fluttered.

Lelouch said, appearing suddenly paler than his clothing, "You didn't expect I'd address this topic again. Not ever. You hadn't even thought it of it." All at once, he checked himself, and backed out of Suzaku's space. "The idea hadn't crossed your mind, because Zero – my Zero – has managed to destroy your appetite. Of course." Lelouch laughed hollowly. "Yes. How much you hated Zero would have affected your assessments of anything deeper between us as time went. And that is completely justified. I perhaps should have realized that." Lelouch's murmurs went on, with more words against himself.

Suzaku stood there and tried to function. He thought of simple, geometric lines. The manicured paths of the garden they occupied, easy to follow and hedged on most sides….

There were places Suzaku had known he could walk. There were places he'd lost… and never dreamed he might re-find. Lelouch opened a path again. And as if it were something so… so casual.

Suzaku hated it. He couldn't stand it. His hand closed in a fist. The fist merely loosened.

Lelouch took no notice; he gazed back at the flowers. "I see. I understand. It's fine."

How could Lelouch recompose himself so quickly? Lelouch's regained — forced, but regained — tranquility, so like a placid, shining birdbath…. Even if Lelouch fought to uphold the composure, it seemed to mock that Suzaku stood in the gazebo, roiling. Debating.

To suggest pursing intimacy now, when so much time had passed, and so many events had come in between them… when Zero Requiem waited on the horizon…. That was earthshaking enough.

And then, to decide so quickly that Suzaku _wasn't interested?_

That was plain unacceptable.

Suzaku hated the idea, yes. But damn him, he gave in to so much that he hated. So for Lelouch to turn away, to mutter, to deny them this, before Suzaku could even speak, before Suzaku had digested and processed… to make assumptions and choose for both of them, in that quick-assessing style of his, when Suzaku's silence this time was only because he felt stricken dumb, perhaps flattered….

Annoying. Unacceptable.

Suzaku finally twitched. He blinked, and breathed a very shaky breath.

"And I'm sorry to have brought up something so repellent to you." Lelouch _did_ sound sorry, still blathering on, his voice thin and weary like the threads of an ancient T-shirt. "It was my intention to bring us a little closer at the end — not press us both farther apart. Try not to hold it against me. Though I'll understand if you do. You can go now, if you prefer."

At least _that_ was easy enough to react to. Suzaku said, "I'm not going."

Except then he failed to express anything more.

Lelouch cleared his throat again, looking conflicted. Then yet again he turned aside.

Suzaku didn't want Lelouch to think his idea rejected. Suzaku still believed he _should_ reject it, but—

He stepped into Lelouch's space. His hand came up to touch Lelouch's cheek.

He did find Lelouch beautiful. _That_ hadn't changed, in all their time. In fact, it had proved a _lovely_ source of angst often, for Suzaku. But Lelouch was impermanent, now… and someone Suzaku had sworn he would kill.

Suzaku stood still, cycling through every aspect of the person before him. Lelouch appeared like a swan caught in a snare, allowing Suzaku to brush his cheek with his hand. What would happen, _really_ , if they simply allowed…?

And then Suzaku was catching those fine strands of hair, drawing Lelouch toward him as if Lelouch were air. Suzaku allowed himself to find out, to answer all those persistent questions. He allowed the pulse in his chest to conquer.

Because what was he _supposed_ to do?

Before he shut the idea down, did he not _owe_ it to himself – and to Lelouch – to at least try? To make sure they at least attempted this, to avoid making some sort of massive mistake? It was a mistake of another sort to get involved in this at all. But it might be a mistake of a _worse_ kind not to find out what things they felt. Suzaku didn't know. He couldn't possibly know, but he—

Lelouch let out a signal. " _Mmn._ "

Suzaku couldn't read it. Surprise? Permission, for the sudden kiss Suzaku now bestowed despite himself? Or would Lelouch pull away, affronted or otherwise now plain confused? Was this all some test for Suzaku as well, or did Lelouch vi Britannia _want_ this, badly – despite knowing as well as Suzaku that it _really wasn't wise?_

Lelouch was untouchable. Something practically sacred now. Suzaku was helping Lelouch die. How could they go and cross these lines?

Lelouch's hands closed on Suzaku's shoulders. Suzaku tasted the flesh of parted lips, when Lelouch gasped and their breaths started to mingle. Suzaku unleashed a small, urgent noise, when Lelouch's tongue darted inside to taste him.

He intended to stop. To check them both again. After all, what Suzaku still believed he _most_ was trying to prove was that they shouldn't do this. How could they dare? How could it possibly turn out helpful to them? But the kiss became daring before he could halt it.

Lelouch tightened his hold at Suzaku's shoulders, and Suzaku caught Lelouch's lower lip between his own, roughly. His heartbeat raced; his focus on knight's etiquette began to blur. Then his control blurred, thoroughly. Sensation heightened between their sliding, seeking lips, and the kiss grew deeper. Grew faster. Lelouch's fingers fumbled with Suzaku's clothes, stroking, clinging. Suzaku found and held Lelouch's hips, after moving his greedy hands from Lelouch's jaw down his slim torso.

Lelouch plucked nimbly at Suzaku's collar. Royal lips claimed the hollow of Suzaku's throat.

"O- _oh._ " Suzaku couldn't help himself. The reaction presented itself as a groan.

He shook his head and stepped away, before he could give in to what impulse struck – a carnal urge that stretched awake and insisted he should force Lelouch against the railing, and touch him. To create pleasures neither of them had dared to think about, with each other, or in a gazebo, until now.

But that was not his mind talking. Suzaku suspected it was not his heart, either. It was something much simpler. And so incredibly unfair.

Suzaku's _lust_ was what spoke now to him – the very force Suzaku knew that he could not cave to, like this. Not here. Not these circumstances.

While a part of him wished he didn't have to care — why couldn't he simply be the eager, foolish teenaged boy he ought to have been, at eighteen? — the part of him that had been tempered by all his experience as a soldier, and a knight, and a killer, and a sword, and _Lelouch's punishment_ said Suzaku actually knew much better. Suzaku _knew_ he needed to separate his desire from reality.

Lelouch looked startled by Suzaku's reaction. Suzaku licked his lips, grasping for words, finding none. Those purple eyes, so overblown… and Lelouch's lips, now kiss-bitten, dark rose hued and moist…. The look of Lelouch there, so ravished, aroused…. It shot Suzaku's chivalry to hell.

And that was too damned dangerous.

If Suzaku didn't stop playing, he might do things he would regret — in time. For reasons horribly complex. Merited, after Requiem.

And Lelouch would never be there, to tell Suzaku it was all right.

Suzaku felt cold start to seize him. Complex and complicated emotions began creeping out of the door he couldn't close. Such a draft of chill, poisonous air. No, Suzaku didn't want this. Kissing Lelouch made him afraid the door would _bang open_ , smack into the wall, and leave a mark he'd never fix. Too dangerous, this thread of shared desire, too much in opposition to the goals they'd come far to achieve.

Yet Suzaku's need now felt emphatic, acute. It burned. Yes, he wanted a tryst. Suzaku cleared his throat, blinking. He tried to speak, but groaned once more.

There was a pause, which Lelouch broke, only after the pause grew twice as desperate. "Your wavering control is overwhelmingly erotic."

Lelouch's voice came out thick with his want. His eyes were as unfocused and hazy as Suzaku realized his own must be. To hear Lelouch state that his unchecked self-restraint appeared 'erotic' nearly pressed Suzaku to further things he shouldn't do.

"We can't do this," Suzaku murmured.

Lelouch's voice stayed pleasure-thick. "There's no reason why we should stop. No reason on earth I'd want you to refrain. There's nothing left for us to lose."

"Are you so terribly convinced of that? You don't know what I want to do to you. Or what doing it might cause — now or… or later. The circumstances around this are awful. Haven't you thought beyond what's in your pants?"

He thought Lelouch might laugh at him, but in a moment Lelouch seemed to realize Suzaku was serious. Suzaku's hands closed, opened, and closed again. "What would this do to Requiem?" he whispered.

Lelouch's eyes narrowed like slits closing in someone's window blinds. "Are you planning to break your vow to finish me?" he asked, darkly.

"No. _I can't._ Because that's our punishment. I won't go back on that promise; killing you and becoming Zero in your place is the only real penance for the both of us. But that's why I can't just do _this_. Can't you see?" If only life would grant Suzaku a better tool in his libidinous haze than words that sounded mangled, vague.

"What I proposed was but a tryst. That's all," Lelouch replied quickly. "And a casual one, one only physical. A tryst doesn't have to be much beyond than that." Lelouch knew where Suzaku was trying to go. And he was trying to deter Suzaku from believing it all to be… complicated. His voice stayed even. Until toward the end, when it shook – much like Suzaku's control again, to hear Lelouch imploring him. "Just make me yours, Suzaku. Before the end. At— at least one time. _I want it._ If even a single part of you thinks there'd be room to allow me this final request… don't deny me. I promise you there will be no repercussions."

"A final request?" Suzaku didn't want to think of it like that. That wasn't fair, somehow. Was it? That was Lelouch, being hasty, taking advantage of his impermanent position to ask for boon to be granted. Did Lelouch see a tryst as some sort of reward? Did the demon emperor deserve rewarding?

And if Lelouch _cared_ for Suzaku, so much that he would ask this favor… then why hadn't Lelouch brought it up until now?

Suzaku had a feeling he was simply being turned from a sword into an impersonal tool for pleasure, to allow Lelouch to _feel_ pleasure before he bled out on the royal parade float, at Zero's feet, and could feel it no more. Suzaku didn't wish to be an instrument that could be played like _that_.

"There would be no repercussions for _you_ ," Suzaku added, curtly. Lelouch would die and feel nothing, and leave Suzaku with the results. There might be _emotional_ repercussions for eternity – or for as long as Suzaku lived.

Thanks to the Geass, those two items were already practically the same, weren't they.

"Don't be naive," Lelouch said. His voice left him again, breathless. His lips neared Suzaku's again. "There would be no repercussions on your end, either. Once I was gone, you'd feel nothing left over." It came out almost like a question. Lelouch sounded like he battled back a fear. But then his face returned to his expression of insistence and determination.

Lelouch didn't want to suspect — or even have it suggested to him — that Suzaku might court anything but simple, disassociated lust, when it came to threads between them. Lelouch did not want to conceive of bigger notions like emotions, or hearts… of such _irony_ of feeling in the face of a task like Zero Requiem.

And maybe Lelouch could entertain denial, because it hurt him to think about whether Suzaku might mourn him, and moon after him even after his grandiose death. But Suzaku did not have that luxury. Suzaku could no longer _afford_ denial.

Suzaku was the one who might wake up at night, cold and clammy, rasping Lelouch's name. Desperately wishing Lelouch wasn't gone, wishing he hadn't tied his heart to someone so impermanent.

"Lelouch, you don't understand," Suzaku said to him, giving up for the moment on emperor titles.

They could not become lovers. Fate had already decided what they'd been and were to be instead.

Childhood friends. Classmates. Enemies.

Knight of Zero and Emperor.

It was too late to fit another, more complex label into the mix.

Suzaku wanted to push Lelouch against one of the wooden beams that held the gazebo roof up. Suzaku wanted to nip and bite and drive Lelouch into breathless, thoughtless pleasure — so that Lelouch wouldn't _say_ these things that made Suzaku feel crazy. Helpless. And more angry than he'd ever been in his life, with nothing to take it out on. Suzaku wanted to make Lelouch scream his name, so that Lelouch wouldn't make Suzaku _think_ about this, and how much he'd be _losing_ if he gave in to the notion of lovers—

He stepped away another inch.

"You don't want this?" Lelouch asked him. The downturn of his mouth was soft, as if he would try not to let it speak for itself – speak for his disappointment at Suzaku's conflicted attitude. Apparently the wavering was no longer so 'erotic.'

Suzaku looked at the curve of that tempting mouth and told himself again that he was making the right decision. He said, the words coming out choked, "I can't. I cannot grant you this."

"Of course, Sir Kururugi," Lelouch said. "Very well. Think nothing else of it, in that case, then. I understand your viewpoint and there will be no repercussions for refusing, either."

But Suzaku wasn't sure that Lelouch really did understand him. And as if to punctuate the horrible gaping chasm opening between them, the emperor turned away from him.

Not petulantly. Not sarcastically. But it closed the conversation completely.

It closed it, perhaps, _forever_.

Suzaku tried not to feel destroyed. Was there _no_ good choice he could make? He tried not to feel the twinge inside his chest. What was so damn wrong with trying to make the right decision in the end? What right had Lelouch had, to ask Suzaku to get his heart involved?

Suzaku gazed at Lelouch's profile. Then he separated them, and swept into a regulated bow.

While he was looking at the floor, he noticed two or three drops fall — from somewhere. They patted wetly onto the gazebo's floorboards. Suzaku stared at them a moment, holding his perfect, formal bow – until he realized they had come from his eyes.

Blinking, he straightened up at last. "I'll take my leave, Your Majesty."

"Yes." Lelouch didn't look at him.

"I'm available still, when you want to call for me."

"Yes."

Suzaku turned around. "I would still like to dine with you this evening."

"The dining schedule has not changed."

Suzaku waited only long enough to determine that Lelouch was through with him. The sunlight glinted in the wetness of his eyes, and made him squint enough to squeeze another tear loose, after he'd turned his back.

He made his way slowly back down the stairs, toward the fading azaleas.

* * *

 _Author Note : This has another chapter that's coming (haha, pun certainly intended). I know I sometimes take forever to add chapters, and with some of my shorter stuff, I trail off and NEVER upload latter chapters. But this fic is going to be finished (feel free not to believe it until you see it, LOL). __Like I said, I have limited time now to get all the Requiem out of my system... and I want to put it out there! Plus I've already written 85% of my next chapter. I'm not wasting that much fanfic by neglecting to give it you people. :P_


	2. Chapter 2

_Author Note : As promised. Have fun hurting over Requiem._

* * *

The problem was that Lelouch had gotten Suzaku thinking about it. No matter where they met, the rest of that day — palace or gardens — and no matter what they did, a voice in Suzaku's head piped up to ask if he was _quite certain_ he did not wish to have sex with Lelouch vi Britannia. Suzaku didn't think his mind would have jumped straight to sex, either, if Lelouch hadn't done a wretched and deliberate thing in the kitchens.

Tactical, determined, and unaccustomed as he was to _losing_ , Lelouch had swiped a daub of cream off the cook's passing tea time tart. And then he had licked his finger, and made a contented sound much like a cat.

The finger-lick had not been an innocent, unconscious taste of dessert. Lelouch's hooded, violet eyes had held Suzaku's _far_ too long for that.

To make it worse, after Suzaku had gone outwardly like a stone, and inwardly like putty, Lelouch had flushed, as if at his own daring. Then Lelouch had continued on, as if nothing suggestive had even happened. But his flush, his self-conscious uncertainty…. Suzaku had never seen Lelouch like _that._

It made him want to pin Lelouch on a mattress… and engage in something well beyond the oral exchange Lelouch's tongue had suggested.

Suzaku wanted to make Lelouch writhe, scream, and come across bed coverlets. _Here_ was the teenager in him he'd mourned, rearing himself — and almost uncontrollably. But Suzaku still knew better, way back in his mind, underneath the raging hormones.

He was _not going to grant Lelouch his wishes._

Suzaku was certain Lelouch knew there was no point in pressing him. In fact, after that afternoon, efforts to change Suzaku's mind ceased themselves.

Lelouch became himself again. The calm, determined emperor. And dinner proceeded that night, in the same way it always had… since two Ashford students had purloined the throne. Dinner was formal, opulent, and planned.

Except Suzaku arrived late. He hadn't known whether he should really show. He had intended to, originally, but now he couldn't trust himself. Oh, he trusted himself not to cave in, and take Lelouch between soup and salad courses. But that didn't mean he wouldn't feel… distracted.

Suzaku did not think eating would go well if his mind danced toward other topics. He didn't want to appear conflicted, still — 'erotic' at all, to Lelouch — lest Lelouch see him wavering and think yet again he could tempt Suzaku. Conquer. Win.

As well, Suzaku could not get over the feeling that he'd let Lelouch down somehow — despite not being wrong about a tryst being a terrible idea. The guilt Suzaku felt was worse than his hormonal distraction.

Suzaku didn't want Lelouch to die with regrets. He didn't. If Lelouch had to die with those, let them be regrets about killing Euphy. About lying to Nunnally, or about using the Geass. Anything else seemed like excess that Lelouch didn't quite deserve. Therefore wasn't it cruel, to deny Lelouch what he so wanted?

And yet. If Suzaku _did_ grant Lelouch's request… then _he_ might have to live with grand regrets, in the place of Lelouch simply dying with them. Should Suzaku make that sacrifice? His mind worked itself in circles.

Lloyd and Cécile had both already gone by the time Suzaku entered the large dining room. The lights glowed, as low as the sun outside now, and only CC sat beside the emperor.

Lelouch did a curious thing. He sent CC away when Suzaku arrived. Suzaku and CC passed each other — petals on a windy night — and when Suzaku raised his eyebrows at her as if to ask what was in store, CC neither smirked, nor guffawed, nor made a snide comment at him.

That boded very ill for Suzaku.

Indeed, when Suzaku sat down, it seemed Lelouch's mood was chill. But Lelouch passed dishes along to Suzaku. "Would you like butter?"

Suzaku didn't think he could eat. But he tried, just to uphold his charade. The meal proceeded in silence. The fine silverware and finer china winked, in knowing, clever candlelight. The tablecloth gleamed, a light, lacy affair, but something weighed the mealtime down. It made Suzaku feel stifled.

It seemed something momentous brewed, more meaningful than any stew or craft beer from in the kitchens, and Suzaku had no idea what it was. What Lelouch wished to say to him. What would become of them both, now.

Suzaku focused on his spoon, realizing that maybe he read the mood wrong. Maybe Lelouch felt as serene as he looked, and nothing hid underneath the surface. Maybe there were things _Suzaku_ wished to say, to Lelouch, rather than the other way around. But as always, Suzaku had not the guts to say anything whatsoever.

The food on his spoon hung in the air for what seemed like millennia, before Suzaku had the sense to lift the damn thing to his mouth. When he swallowed, the food tasted just like cardboard. He really didn't want to eat. This was no way for a knight to keep up his strength.

Lelouch wasn't eating either. He seemed to fiddle with his knife.

Suzaku bit back a sigh. Even if he could speak his mind, what on earth would Suzaku convey first? What could he say, that wouldn't further taint the time Lelouch had here? He might try, _It's because you matter so much that I can't do what you asked_ , but somehow that didn't feel like it would go over very well.

Lelouch's face across the table looked… bland. If anything, much too carefully arranged. Resigned. And that seemed such a shame, such beauty marred with heaviness like that. Did Suzaku really have a right to disappoint Lelouch like this?

Yet Suzaku couldn't forget the way Lelouch's proposition had left _him_ with a wound, as well. Did Lelouch have a right to ask Suzaku for favors like sex?

Suzaku's heart twanged another time. He ate another spoonful of his food, his tongue managing it like paste. If their lives had been different, if Lelouch had cared for Suzaku _beyond_ just lust that carried no meaning… if Lelouch actually understood repercussions, and could have helped Suzaku to address them… would Suzaku have done anything differently? Would Suzaku have agreed to the urge in his pants?

Lelouch put his hands gently on the table. His plate, Suzaku noticed, remained full. "Suzaku," Lelouch said to him.

Suzaku swallowed — though not food. He drew his hands and his arms out of sight, letting them hide inside his cape. He wrapped his arms around himself.

He waited for Lelouch to speak further.

"Are you going to hate me more for this? For having even brought it up?"

Suzaku had not wished to talk, but the questions opened flood gates. "Do you _need_ me to hate you further, now, to make you a better demon emperor? Do you _need_ to give me another reason to finish you off, and blame you for everything wrong in my world? Was that your plan with this, from the beginning? To make me furious enough — by bringing intimacy up — to hate you more than I already do for everything Zero has done?"

Lelouch's eyelids flickered. His mouth turned down again, into a frown. He looked like he'd answer Suzaku.

But Suzaku didn't let him.

"If yes," Suzaku said, stiffening, "then that was very cruel of you. Using even our attraction like a tool for Requiem, and tainting it with all the hate already tangled between us…. How can you take one of the _few good things we share_ and rob it of its innocence like that?" Lelouch tightened his jaw, but nothing more. "Never mind how dare you ask me for something so— so risky. God damn it. And if this _wasn't_ about you manipulating me some more, to solidify your punishment, and you really want me to bang you as a gift, until your body's weak with it—" Lelouch's eyes widened at that, but Suzaku didn't try to stop. "—then if it's better to talk more, about why I have refused it… I think that is the only thing I'm willing to discuss right now." The final sentence he gritted. "So leave the hatred out of it."

It felt slimy to mix their hate, repentance, and Zero Requiem's bitterness with what Suzaku felt toward Lelouch when Lelouch looked at him with gentleness, desire.

Suzaku watched Lelouch process, across the table in his shining cloak. Lelouch appeared as if he tried not to move, or breathe, or make a sound. But Suzaku knew Lelouch too well. He knew Lelouch's brain now whirred, and reached some kind of curt conclusion he would act upon, in not too long. And Suzaku hated not knowing what it was, when doubtless it would affect both of them.

"Lelouch. I just need you to _understand_."

Suzaku shrank small, in his cape. He wished that he could rub his face, but he would not allow himself such weakness. "I know that what you think of me will cease to matter before long. But that doesn't change that I don't like being in conflict with you while you're here."

A chain closed tight around his throat. He told himself he didn't feel overwhelmed, or like he would choke on feelings.

A muscle in Lelouch's jaw ticked once. Lelouch's face remained a mask.

Was Suzaku getting through at all?

"Even if you never agree with how I see it, I need you to _get_ why I'm denying you. I hate it," Suzaku said to him, "but maybe we have to argue, and battle, until every point gets hashed out. So… let's, so we don't have to leave things… like this." His hands came back out of his cape. He gestured once, into the air, like his guilt and his conflict were dark, evil moths he tried to swat, to no avail.

Arguing with his emperor about feelings that were ironic and taboo was not how Suzaku wished to spend their final hours together. He just wanted to sit and stare, to watch Lelouch _exist_ , while he still did. Maybe he wished to exchange jokes, about school days, or childhood. But Suzaku wouldn't ever be all right with leaving things as they were now.

God, he had managed to mess up quite drastically here, hadn't he?

A moment passed. Their dinner steamed — though weakly now, since time had passed. Lelouch smiled wryly down at the meal spread. And then he straightened in his chair.

The emperor lifted his golden fork, delicately, as if he had an audience. Around his bite of creamed spinach, Lelouch began to talk at Suzaku.

And talk. Engage in discussion. Much like Suzaku had suggested. Except god damn it, Lelouch talked about the most mundane details of his duties and plans as emperor. About matters that touched upon nothing at all — as if specifically rendered to _defy_ Suzaku.

In no time at all, it was not a 'discussion.' The words became a waterfall that Suzaku couldn't sail a boat behind.

Suzaku blinked, rapidly. Alarmed. But after another droll monologue passed, Suzaku began to grow irked.

"And according to the reports," Lelouch told him, as he reached down for more spinach, turning his fork now to admire its shine, "even Odysseus is showing promise. I really think I should be commended on my tombstone for that. Honestly, the trials I've put them all through might turn them into much better people. Carine finally knows how to hold a broomstick. Or at least, CC said she did... and _she's_ the witch, so I assume it to be true. It would seem—"

Suzaku put his napkin down. "Are you doing this on purpose?" he cut in. He calmed himself, then tried again, using a dose more of his knightly respect. "Your Majesty?" He counted breaths.

"Doing what?" Lelouch said to him.

Suzaku thought he would go insane. His temples began to feel tight, and a muscle in his leg started to twitch. "Dwelling on topics that are inconsequential, when I've expressed that we should talk about—"

"Sir Kururugi," Lelouch said. "Nothing is inconsequential when one is the emperor of the whole world. If you can't handle these details, I suggest we rethink our dinner meetings." Then Lelouch paused, adding, "As well, you've made it clear it frustrates you beyond any control, to focus on what I asked for while we were in the gazebo. Perhaps I'm talking about something else… in the hopes that it will calm you, Knight of Zero."

"But you're being a dick about how you're doing it."

He hadn't meant it to come out like that.

Suzaku shut his eyes. He changed the topic. He'd let Lelouch's flip back to the formal way of addressing him annoy him. "Why did you send CC away?" he asked.

Hadn't Lelouch done it so they would be alone? Didn't that mean this was a perfect chance to talk? Why did Lelouch have to be so difficult?

"Before you came in here to dine, CC's opinion was that this meal didn't please her. I told her to feel free to order pizza. You know she can't resist a slice."

Mundane. Mundane, and well-designed to fend Suzaku off, like a housefly. Suzaku stayed quiet, but he didn't pick his spoon back up to eat again.

His upset with their situation seemed to flip a switch in him. He tried to fight his temper. He sat there, waiting for Lelouch to realize that he would only boil over if Lelouch didn't finally give in. Suzaku wanted Lelouch to acknowledge the complex net tangling them. Acknowledge that despite everything, Suzaku _tried —_ and it would be _so nice_ if Lelouch stopped being a brat, and talked to Suzaku, and tried back.

He watched Lelouch lean back and sip casually from his crystal glass. Lelouch swallowed, then dabbed his mouth. Then went on eating normally.

He didn't even raise his eyes. Suzaku might as well not have been present in the room at all.

The silverware and platters on the table clattered, when the flats of Suzaku's hands came down between them like two sledge hammers. At the same time, Suzaku shoved himself out of his chair, so he could lean on the table.

At the same time, Lelouch fell still like a statue.

"Do _not_ do this," Suzaku told him.

"Do what?" Lelouch whispered stiffly.

"Do not start pushing me away, or ignoring my side of this, simply because once in your life you aren't getting what you want. Don't do it. I can't take the games."

Suzaku would not give a game a change to begin, to mess with him. He knew how Lelouch played. _Checkmate_. Suzaku did not want his knight's piece cast aside that wretchedly, that easily.

Lelouch's voice dipped, dangerous. "My desire for you is not a game. Nor has it ever been, Knight of Zero."

Suzaku contemplated that. At least they were getting somewhere.

He still growled, to clarify. "Still. You've been talking about lust, correct? Don't you see how that's too naive? If lust is what you meant, _Your Majesty,_ when you told me we could have a 'physical' tryst… if lust alone is what you meant, when you suggested there'd be no repercussions, then you have failed to consider everything. I'm asking you to understand that in my case, it's… more complex. You don't understand what I face, or you just don't have _respect_ for—"

"You have upset the table, Sir Kururugi." Lelouch tone, his interruption sounded perfectly benign. Suzaku noticed the pepper shaker had tipped over and spilled grains.

He slammed his hands down one more time. Lelouch's goblet jumped, and the serving fork fell out of the salad bowl. "Stop doing this to me, Lelouch!" He didn't care about the table's state. A jewel on his big cape trailed through the gravy boat. He ignored it.

Then Suzaku dropped his stinging eyes to his napkin, feeling so ludicrous. Feeling like now, instead of teenager, he'd reverted — in anger — to his child self. To the child that had once punched Lelouch, because Lelouch woke up too much in him, from thrill to hatred to despair. For the love of Lancelot, would he cry again?

Why did it have to hurt, so much, that Lelouch only cut him off, diverted him, and wouldn't talk? Weren't things like this meant to _matter,_ if they'd ever been friends at all?

It mattered, damn it. It cut him like a blade, because Suzaku had never intended to _let Lelouch down,_ on top of hating and opposing him. On top of fighting as his knight, only to murder him and deny any forgiveness for Zero's misdeeds. This was the worst feeling in the whole world. Was that Lelouch's stupid goal? To make Suzaku feel as rejected, and hopeless, and lost for letting Lelouch down as Suzaku had made Lelouch feel, by denying them any tryst?

Suzaku couldn't stand this.

He watched Lelouch taking another calculated bite of food. Was Lelouch even tasting it?

And he was _still so beautiful_. That hair, falling against his cheek. Untouchable, untouchable, and farther now from Suzaku than the image at the end of a telescope. Suzaku felt like he gazed at and battled the cold tundra of outer space. He'd never win; he couldn't reach. Lelouch was far away from him, and Suzaku looked at all that black and all that cruel universe and realized he would go insane. He suspected that he would break.

"This is killing me," Suzaku rasped.

The reply reached him, clipped. "Is it."

Suzaku realized his poor, poor choice in wording — terribly too late. Had he forgotten so quickly his Geass from Lelouch? _Live on._ To dare to bring up the possibility that he would die, even if it—

Lelouch was already rising — his silverware placed down calmly — and he looked like an emperor.

He looked like he'd destroy something.

Lelouch arched his neck and set his napkin down, as pale as a chill, winter moon. "I am terribly sorry, dear Knight of Zero," Lelouch said, honeyed, dangerous, "that you feel as if you're _dying._ It must be quite a grim mental ordeal to navigate a reality as stark and as uncompromising as that. Allow me to show you some calm _compassion,_ as you fight the anxiety."

Ah.

Suzaku's fingers trembled. He stepped back. On top of his ironic comment in the face of his Geass, there was that aspect, wasn't there. Of course Lelouch would end up incensed thanks to his _own_ fate, when instigated so. Of course Lelouch couldn't help but think about how _he'd_ die, versus Suzaku.

It was all part of Requiem, for Lelouch to lose something he dearly treasured. That was how Lelouch would finally repent. But Lelouch didn't _want_ to die, especially not while Nunnally still lived. Yet even so, he'd plotted Requiem. Of course Lelouch struggled and suffered, dealing with his decision.

Suzaku was a fool, to disrespect Lelouch's sacrifice by saying—

"Perhaps, since you _do_ have your ability, however, to _avoid_ dying horribly, you should stop whining and do something about bettering your mood." Lelouch let fly his volume, rigidly.

Suzaku realized they were alone, beyond CC now being gone. Lelouch had dismissed all the guards. Even the kitchen staff had gone.

Had he meant to talk, after all? Had Suzaku rushed this, cluelessly? This wasn't easy for either of them. Maybe Lelouch had wanted to work up gently, to something more—

Suzaku knew he'd made a mistake. But how, now, ought he to fix it?

And he had never seen Lelouch lose his composure quite to this degree. Even when Lelouch had learned Nunnally lived, and had flung his chess set off its board, outraged at Schneizel's upper hand, Lelouch's outburst had not carried quite this thread of hopeless desperation. The lines between Lelouch's eyebrows and the downward pull of his fine features said if Suzaku got close, Lelouch might just… kill him. Right here. Might just give up and end it all, and be done with it, finally.

Like _Lelouch_ had gone insane, first. Like if Lelouch could not manage either of their struggles, and shut Suzaku up because Suzaku insisted on suggesting this might kill him before Requiem could occur — and thus ruin their promise, and ruin their trust, and fail to save the world they'd wrecked — then Lelouch might decide to off Suzaku here — and at least get a small burst of satisfaction.

Suzaku wasn't sure, watching Lelouch, he didn't wish to allow it.

But then. As if Lelouch realized his ire as clearly as Suzaku did, and felt just as tempted as Suzaku by the urge to set the palace afire, he smoothed his features… and he took a deep breath.

The effect of the effort froze Suzaku's blood more. He had no idea how Lelouch compartmentalized anguish like that.

In another instant, Lelouch was walking — away from the dining table.

"Lelouch, wait. Please." Suzaku choked it. Was he as stupid as all this? He could not stand to see Lelouch stride for the door, with such finality. Lelouch looked so thin, lately, too, so weak.… He had only managed a few bites of spinach. His lips had touched his drink but once.

"Lelouch, just stay. I didn't mean—"

"Knight of Zero," Lelouch's temper crackled, like guttering candles or summer lightning. "You are without a single doubt the most infuriating, feckless, idiotic, stubborn human being I have encountered in my short lifetime. It is a wonder to me we have managed so much together."

" _Please_ don't go saying things like that." Lelouch was going to cast all the _good_ things they'd shared in darkness.

Lelouch paused once at the door jamb. He came to some conclusion there, his face going unreadable. Was it because of Suzaku's shaking plea? But his voice remained like a whip.

"I want you to find me. In one hour. _God help you,_ Suzaku, if you disobey me."

With that, the emperor disappeared. Suzaku stood, wrapped in the 'fight or flight' mode that came more typically when he fought Knightmare frames.

He debated, for that hour. He worried. He walked up and down every hall.

He smelled pizza from CC's room, but she didn't come outside to offer advice. Suzaku didn't dare to knock. Not even the paintings Clovis had done amused him enough to bring him any calm.

On the hour, sharp, just like a knight, Suzaku knocked at Lelouch's door. Most of the rooms in the emperor's wing — its chambers — had been left unlocked. Suzaku did not know what to think that finally, he found himself knocking on the one door he knew to be Lelouch's _bedroom_ one.

"Come in."

Suzaku didn't want to. But he followed the order perfectly.

Except then he stopped, hovering inside the door. The sight presented to him caused him to bite his tongue. Very hard.

He'd seen Lelouch's emperor's bed before — the stately, carved affair with the canopied top like festival streamers. He had watched Lelouch court a special sort of fit, having the mattress changed, and all the sheets, and the drapes of the canopy when they'd moved in.

But Suzaku had never seen the bed quite like it came presented, now.

An unclothed Lelouch reclined on the bed's top, covered only in silk — see-through, but for the space between his hips. It seemed the silk passed as bedsheets. Lelouch looked mildly up at Suzaku, as if he hardly cared Suzaku entered, despite his ordering Suzaku to.

Suzaku felt his face go tomato at once. He turned around, immediately. His foot passed the threshold to retreat sharply, but Lelouch uttered, "If you do, you'll regret it. That's why I've called you to this room. Come in and shut the door now, Suzaku."

Against his will, Suzaku paused. Then, slowly, Suzaku turned around.

Lelouch's face now flushed as well. So… Lelouch knew, like Suzaku did, how laughable it seemed, and how pathetic, to finally resort to this? As if this were an old movie. As if Suzaku had no control. Did Lelouch think Suzaku would cave, just by seeing Lelouch spread out, like plunder for Suzaku's taking? Why did Lelouch so easily offer himself?

Suzaku's cheeks were still heating. And possibly the rest of him. He said, "I know what you're doing. But it will never work, Lelouch."

"Being this blunt and this direct — with the only method that seems to work on you — is the best way I can get through your thick skull," Lelouch said, toneless.

"Believe me, you already made it clear what you wanted from me. You didn't need to go this far. Especially since I refused you."

"Say that while your eyes rove my actual face, and not the length of my body."

Suzaku, caught, and mortified, returned his eyes to Lelouch's. He swallowed. "Why do this, Lelouch?"

Then Suzaku stepped inside, and shut and locked the great door behind him. God forbid even Geassed maids wander in and see this play out. "You know I've told you that I can't." Suzaku's voice left him weary.

"I heard you, very loud and clear." Lelouch reclined more languidly, but his tone was neither arrogant nor come-hither, nor his posture deliberately seductive. He was just… calm. And very direct. Suzaku found it disconcerting. And that skin…. "It may be I'm the one who will be gone," Lelouch told him, coolly, "and thus immune to all of this. There may be things I do not understand, but I do understand one thing. It's this. You do want me, Suzaku Kururugi. And I take great pleasure in wanting you back. This tryst was suggested not just for my sake, but for yours. I do not want you to—"

"I never asked you to do this. I never wanted to go here. You could go die in Requiem, and it would still be difficult — but it wouldn't have been as torturous as doing this, right now, right here."

"And you are foolish, thanks to clinging to that narrow view of it. You want to set the hate aside? Then do so, and _then_ assess this. Or is what you have merely fear? I suggest you cast that aside. I would do this for you, so you have no regrets. Is that clear, yet? Can you not look a few years down the road, or a few _days_ after I'm in the ground _,_ and see that you would loathe yourself for letting your one chance to _know_ this thread between us pass you by? Don't force me to put words to it, to what emotion I know well that you're battling on top of the desire you already feel. I handle the irony of it no better than you do, Suzaku." Lelouch's voice came so even. "But there are things your emperor knows and _does_ handle better than you — for example, right now I suspect that the state and the fit of your uniform under that cape has become _modified,_ and maybe even slightly _compromised_."

The lilt to the suggestive words told Suzaku exactly what Lelouch implied. Lelouch seemed, however, to take the shock Suzaku felt in stride.

"If you do not get on this bed and do something about it," Lelouch said, "then when I die, and you're alone, you are extremely liable to—"

Suzaku had come to the bed, in the midst of the long tirade. Lelouch wasn't wrong, not necessarily, because neither of them knew the future, and Suzaku so, so hated this, but the situation was not salvageable.

Not with Lelouch so obviously primed and ready for Suzaku to— to— to give in to cravings that seemed more violent than yearning for death or Refrain.

Suzaku crashed their lips together — to make Lelouch _silence himself._ Too late, yes, they would spiral down — and the consequences would be dealt with. Later.

Probably for the rest of Suzaku's cursed life.

Lelouch thought he was doing Suzaku a favor, beyond just pleasuring himself in this fashion, before he died? What would Suzaku do, if Lelouch was turned out wrong?

Lelouch let out a mewl of submission, but he didn't let Suzaku rise again. There would be no changing of minds. Lelouch hauled his knight roughly onto the bed.

And Suzaku went — for god, that skin. That unflawed, porcelain flesh like a canvas, waiting for Suzaku to paint it shades of red — through kisses and biting, through the heat of pleasure… bound afterward to end in the crimson of death. That spot behind Lelouch's ear, that white strip like a geisha's neck that smelled of a floral shampoo and _his scent —_ that Suzaku had eyed longingly, one time too many, _aching_ after this — it made Suzaku want to lick, nip, and defile every inch of flesh offered to him right here, at last.

Suzaku would devour everything that Lelouch offered him. Because if Suzaku could never have this again, if he'd be so bluntly seduced into this, then this night was going down in Suzaku's personal mental history — just like watching Lelouch exist in the sunshine. This delicious, damned debauchery would go down as the time Suzaku had broken, slaking himself on heaven's beauty incarnate _because he could no longer help himself._

He would take his pleasure and hold nothing back — because if Suzaku had been cursed to find, to fight, and to follow Lelouch thus already, it only made sense that he'd give in and fuck Lelouch emphatically, as well.

Yes. He would make Lelouch cry out. There seemed little other path now. He'd make of Lelouch _such a mess_ —

Lelouch arched his back and gasped, when first Suzaku's hands found his hips.

If they could only _die_ like this, Suzaku thought, his breath hitching. Like this, and negate all the rest. If they could only wind time back.

Lelouch fell flat underneath him, clay at the touch of Suzaku's hands. And it seemed Lelouch sobbed _,_ just once. Something Suzaku had never once witnessed.

"What do you want? What should I do?" It might have been rhetorical. His voice came out low and ragged, the testament to how much he, too, wanted this.

Lelouch wound his hands into Suzaku's clothes. "Remove all this," Lelouch managed. "Remove it. I want only you."

Suzaku kissed Lelouch's hand.

Suzaku had always complained about the weight of his giant cape. He'd whined — if only to himself — about his boots, that zipped high up his thighs. Putting the outfit on took him more time sometimes than showering — and Suzaku liked to be clean, so his showers lasted ages.

But Suzaku liked to think, right then, that he stripped himself with admirable speed — because Lelouch had begged him in that _voice_. That voice a sweet, yet strong cocktail being poured, melting ice in its glass with a hiss.

Suzaku wanted to _taste_ him. Wanted to become drunk on him, until he couldn't feel a thing but his head spinning with pleasure.

If he thought of anything more, he'd freeze up and back off from this.

His clothes hit the ground in different locations. But Suzaku kept his cape, noting the chill of his skin. When he leaned forward on the mattress again, hovering over Lelouch, the great velvety thing made a tent over them — as if it would protect and contain what would surely be their steaming, and yet too-fleeting pleasure.

"Suzaku. Suzaku, _Suzaku…._ "

Suzaku had never heard his name fall from Lelouch's lips like _that_. If he had not been hard before, now he was. Rather painfully. To think the human body was so simple — pleased so much more easily than brains, or hearts. Suzaku trembled.

Lelouch writhed underneath him, hot. Suzaku touched him everywhere. With hands, with forays of his lips. His tongue swiped a pebbled nipple, and his blood thrummed when Lelouch whined. So Suzaku made the move again… and again, until Lelouch broke into wordless murmurs, panting, hard — until Lelouch shuddered and fisted the cape.

Lelouch squeezed shut his beautiful eyes… and something else as beautiful and terrible as reality happened just then.

Suzaku felt something in his chest push against the cage of his ribs, something much like a bud that broke the dirt with a firm persistence. Suzaku thought he knew what it was, what woke, because of this closeness… but he'd thought he could ignore it, to satisfy his simple lust.

But no. This was _Lelouch_ , clinging to him. This was Lelouch, who mattered much. And sometimes pieces of broken and battered hearts came together, manifesting like buds despite circumstances, threatening to bloom when _bodies_ came together in this way. Suzaku's heart asserted itself — the last thing Suzaku had wanted.

"Lelouch…."

If Lelouch were to know, would he die in more pain, or less?

Lelouch had started crying. The tears fell hot, shocking Suzaku. Was their touching so good? So bad? Suzaku lapped once at the moisture, then took Lelouch smartly by the lips. He kissed Lelouch thoroughly breathless, until Lelouch moaned again, rather than cried. This taste, this feeling… it all would be gone. _That_ had to be why Lelouch cried.

How could Suzaku have agreed to this?

Lelouch caught him around the neck and pulled Suzaku in, too close. His fingers twined into Suzaku's hair, and from his lips escaped another sob. The sob resonated, in the ache already inside Suzaku's chest. What could Suzaku do, or say?

Suzaku started to say something he shouldn't say… and yet still felt, persistently. Why ever should he hold it back? Was this truth, this desire to risk speaking it, what Lelouch had meant when he'd claimed there was nothing left for them to lose?

"Lelouch," he said, throwing the choices he'd made until then out the window, "I'll never recover from this. From you. Ever. You're just so— I _love_ y—"

Lelouch craned his neck to steal Suzaku's mouth. He unleashed a desperate sound. " _Nnn._ "

Suzaku understood the sound was simply ' _No'_ getting cut off, in Lelouch's haste to hush him… and instigate Suzaku to move, instead.

Lelouch did not want to hear it. He did not want Suzaku to say a thing that would endanger Requiem, by blotting out the hatred and the certainty they had come to.

Lelouch's kiss sent fire creeping along Suzaku's nerves – and god, Lelouch's lips were so soft _,_ so pliant, the way they slid against his own. A little moist, a little crushed with pressure, as Lelouch pushed twice as close, tightening his fist in Suzaku's hair.

And suddenly Suzaku became aware of what else waited between them. Lelouch was erect, in no benign or unimpressive way, and his need roared in Suzaku's ears loud enough to drown out all else.

Then Lelouch pulled Suzaku away, a hair's breadth, so they both could gasp for air… and when Suzaku's lips parted again, Lelouch came between them another time, venturing out with darting tongue. Pressing himself against Suzaku, limberly.

The kiss near curled Suzaku's toes. Suzaku felt a moan dragged out of him, as Lelouch's tongue slipped past his teeth, so slick and hot, and seeking something, as if Lelouch would speed Suzaku's arousal beyond what Suzaku could take. As if Suzaku weren't already helplessly hard, and greedily aware of it. When Lelouch's tongue caressed his, a beast far more formidable than Suzaku's regret, or his hesitation, or his misery flexed itself — the same beast that had arrested Suzaku's reason in the gazebo. He shuddered.

His tongue curled around and against Lelouch's back, and Suzaku forgot the three-word phrase he had nearly let slip. He forgot the ache that came from knowing that Lelouch would never feel it back back. After a dance between their mouths that suggested so many intimate acts that Suzaku's felt faint, Lelouch drew his tongue away – whimpering. Lelouch used the pause to drag Suzaku full flush against himself.

Suzaku began sweating. Like this, he could feel every plane and curve of Lelouch's body, and if he thought before that he had come close to insanity… he hadn't.

Regardless of buds in the chest, regardless of taboo phrases, Lelouch wanted this just as much, in the sexual sense. Lelouch _craved_ him. Did Suzaku deserve such desire and regard from his emperor? And then—

Lelouch became possessive again, and wiped out Suzaku's struggling thoughts, as next he bit on Suzaku's lower lip and sucked there, imploring. And exquisitely canting his hips, in the same moment.

Suzaku released a husky cry. To think they'd touch, in such a place, to think he'd welcome it, like this, despite himself. He thrust against Lelouch back—

"Yes. Yes, _yes,_ ah, Suzaku—!"

Lelouch licked Suzaku's lip in one hard, neat stripe of slippery gloss, to mark it as his territory and bid Suzaku to continue. But Suzaku was already far beyond that.

Suzaku could feel the lower half of Lelouch's body heat more. Every shift drove Suzaku mad, as he held Lelouch roughly by both the hips and tried to keep their erections from rubbing together and making him come. Lelouch was writhing under him, his legs sliding desperately this way and that, as if he could do anything but let Suzaku take control of him.

And Suzaku liked that control. He liked having the control of _something,_ for once — something unrelated to war, to death. He liked having control of this commanding and merciless emperor who had decreed that for Suzaku to repent, he must both be able to pleasure and murder.

Suzaku's hunger had reached new zenith. But somehow Lelouch's seemed worse. His desperation struck Suzaku as so appealing that Suzaku wished both to drag out the pleasure and sate Lelouch's appetite—

He wasn't sure what to do next.

"I have a request," Lelouch said.

"Final one?" Suzaku asked, seriously. Was Lelouch going to declare, after this night, and whatever request he had, that the very next morning Suzaku must kill him?

Lelouch brushed fingertips on Suzaku's mouth, as if to keep Suzaku silent. But Suzaku could not stay quiet when Lelouch said, "You, inside me." Suzaku let out a sound like metal wires curling under heat. He licked Lelouch's fingers, weak. "It seems like to do so would suit you. Am I right, that you want it?"

Suzaku moaned. "I wouldn't have you any other way, I think, if I'm only to get it once. I think I want to pound you, until you are seeing stars, Lelouch."

"That's interesting pillow talk. You can't manage more eloquence?" Lelouch was teasing him, only. Suzaku's attention had already helplessly turned Lelouch on. Suzaku wanted to hate Lelouch, wanted to walk away. But he couldn't.

"You want it now?" Suzaku asked. "Already? Do I need to rush all this?" He trailed a hand along Lelouch's thigh. Suzaku had wanted to try things with his mouth—

"I've waited and wanted this act with you for longer than you know." The response came murmured against Suzaku's ear, like summer rain on a window. "That's practically an order. Enter me." Suzaku breathed out and Lelouch clutched him close. "I don't think I'd mind seeing stars. At the very least, knight of mine… I'm already in heaven, engaging in this pleasure with you."

Then Lelouch raised one playful eyebrow — knowing he was no better, in the end, at his creative pillow talk.

But if Suzaku was not already undone, then _that_ statement pulled him apart — that first one, ' _longer than you know.'_ Like laces coming off a woman's corset to reveal something raw, private, vulnerable. Suzaku liked it that Lelouch wanted him. But was Lelouch saying the wait had been a trial? Torture?

Suzaku would punish. He would call to account. But torture was something he had never aimed for.

If Lelouch had wanted this from him, all this time… then _before_ it all came down to a place where lust alone so insulted, not enough — where anything beyond it was an emotional death sentence — then why couldn't Lelouch have _told—_

"What you need is in the bedside drawer." Lelouch's words came as another command. He didn't want to wait.

Not anymore.

Suzaku moved. The cape fell from them, leaving Lelouch entirely exposed. He looked like marble, like artwork, and Suzaku almost tripped finding what he needed.

Lelouch's violet eyes riveted on him, _through_ him, as if Suzaku were something he had wrought, and now admired. "You're absolutely breathtaking."

"I'm hurrying," Suzaku answered.

"That wasn't me filling dead space, giving you empty flattery while waiting. I mean it. And I will lie here, and take in every inch of you."

Was that a double entendre? Suzaku wondered, hazily. Who on earth now would stop Lelouch, if he wished to admire Suzaku? Lelouch was an _emperor_. A beautiful, formidable emperor.

"Admiring your lines," Lelouch went on, "impressing it all upon my memory…."

Then Lelouch did the very same thing Suzaku did. Imprinted it. The only awful difference was that Lelouch had little time left for the recall.

Suzaku came back to the bed, as prepared as he'd ever be. Lelouch welcomed him, lips parting, looking more wanton than Suzaku realized he'd dared to yet.

Lelouch _had_ been attempting to go slowly. He hadn't wished Suzaku to rush. But it was as Lelouch had claimed. The emperor could wait no more.

"You're shaking," Suzaku said to him.

Lelouch paused, for a split second. He said, "There's always a moment like that when your dreams and reality finally collide."

Suzaku wondered if Lelouch had trembled this way, when he'd vanquished Emperor Charles, or heisted the throne — or if this interaction was different, entirely. Did Lelouch mean _dreams_ as something separate from items like _goals_ and _intentions?_ Had Lelouch believed, all this time, that he might conquer the whole world, beat Schneizel, but never once touch Suzaku?

Suzaku said, "I'll be gentle."

The reply was immediate. "Of all the sorrow I've brought you, I would never do you the further disservice of ordering you to hold back, Suzaku. Don't be gentle," Lelouch told him. "I want whatever you can give."

Suzaku didn't deserve this.

And yet, he took himself in hand, and kissed the flushing side of Lelouch's neck. He thought that he might cry again. "You don't know what I feel, Lelouch. How badly I want you to realize—"

Lelouch looked in Suzaku's eyes, interrupting. "All the more reason to show me. Don't make me wait here, Suzaku."

Suzaku held back a helpless sniff.

And again he just wished this would murder them both. At the very least, they would die pleasurably.

Suzaku used his fingers first. Lelouch threw his arms up and over his head, panting, trying hard not to shift. His panting became low, encouraging moans. "More, a little more. _Yes._ If you stop there—"

"I won't, Lelouch. I won't," Suzaku said.

He withdrew his fingers and bent himself, when Lelouch appeared unable to stand much more. The moment Suzaku entered, he felt time stop.

God, this. Just this. This _connection_. The bud pushed itself further out of Suzaku's chest. The dirt was giving way to grass. A garden of feeling opened up in him.

Lelouch was so tight, hot inside, and slick, because of the bottle Suzaku had been ordered to make use of. And this felt so good he thought he—

Lelouch gave a bitten-back wince.

It was no good yet, Suzaku realized. Lelouch had not done this before. Lelouch might beg, plead, and appear confident… but having sex like this was new to them. When in their lives had they had time to navigate an act like this? And now, they both needed to learn.

Now, when they had no time to go slowly.

Suzaku was not sure how long he could resist starting up movement. Hadn't Lelouch ordered him not to hold back? But Suzaku didn't want to hurt—

He said to Lelouch, "Flip around. Your back to me. I think then… the angle? I—"

Lelouch shook his head into the crook of Suzaku's shoulder, the hot breath of another sob making Suzaku's skin heated. Then Lelouch tightened up, getting more tense.

The feeling drove Suzaku a little insane.

And god, the way Lelouch dug fingertips into his back. He dragged his grip up the length of Suzaku's spine…. Suzaku shuddered. And then he groaned, for Lelouch was tilting his hips.

Suddenly, Lelouch's legs came up to wrap around his waist, as well. Both Lelouch's arms settled around him, and now his legs clamped themselves down — tight, flattening Suzaku against every inch of his haunches.

Too much. Suzaku would go _insane._ Lelouch's sweat smelled musky, and Lelouch husked out, "Stay close. Like this. I want it just like this. Now please, please… _please_ move. _Suzaku—_ "

Suzaku did as he was told. He gave Lelouch what he wanted.

He finally granted Lelouch's request — because nothing left on planet earth, not even Zero Requiem, could have prevented him from this exploration he so wanted.

The first thrusts were a bit hapless. But then Suzaku found his rhythm. Lelouch didn't complain — rather, he arched his back and tossed his head. Heat radiated off Lelouch like a furnace. Suzaku increased his pace. Suzaku sweated in tiny beads… and as he kept going like that, to the sound of Lelouch's explosion of pleas, to the sight of Lelouch lost in their two bodies, Suzaku lost himself as well — in something like a wave of ecstasy.

He rode the wave, like a ship toward a gracious island in a storm. Then Lelouch stiffened, as Suzaku changed angles.

The ratcheted-up tension burst, and gave way into the loud cries and desperate screams Suzaku had desired.

"Ah, ah, _aahn_ — Suza-aah!"

Suzaku didn't care that it was rough, and that Lelouch was very loud. Lelouch dug his hands into Suzaku's hips and pulled Suzaku in, in, _in_ , before his function and his strength seemed to fail him entirely. When Lelouch could manage his own motion no more, Lelouch moved his hands around to Suzaku's chest and rested there. Pleasure made Lelouch pliant, weak.

Suzaku liked it that Lelouch curled into him and still kept near, as Suzaku thrust, and thrust, and thrust — so that Lelouch threw back his head and screamed again. So that Lelouch's hands scrabbled against the sheets, the silk crunched between his fingers.

This time Lelouch's deep voice broke… and Suzaku knew that _that_ was it. That he had tipped Lelouch into the climax before orgasm – and the sight of Lelouch as he hit that high point _because of_ and _with Suzaku inside him_ made Suzaku entirely forget himself.

The bud inside him pushed again, and suddenly burst into bloom. Suzaku's body felt amazing, but what he felt inside his chest was epiphany, pain, pleasure times a thousand. The emotion that Lelouch didn't want to know Suzaku had blossomed, leaving Suzaku helpless.

Suzaku bore up under the scented miasma of the flowering emotion he mourned Lelouch had never, ever felt for _him._ Would Suzaku resent Lelouch's distance for years, for eons, until he finally died himself?

He thought perhaps it no longer mattered. Suzaku was here, already a victim, more than he'd ever wished to be. How could this be? Why this? Why them? Why somebody that meant so much… that Suzaku was destined to lose?

Lelouch sobbed and clutched Suzaku close. Suzaku whispered, "Lelouch, I'm here. And I don't care, I love you— more than I think you will ever know."

Lelouch tried to quiet him. "Suzaku—"

"More than I wish I did. More than—"

Lelouch cried out — at both the touch of the words, and the touch of Suzaku's hand slipping between them. Suzaku rubbing Lelouch's length, in time with his murmured, passionate words. Lelouch's body froze in the instant before it went wild at Suzaku's touch, at Suzaku's strokes and Suzaku's thrusts and the closeness they finally shared. Suzaku did not stop touching him, or keeping their bodies sandwiched close.

The cry Lelouch let slip when his crisis at last began to hit made Suzaku come a fast, hot spill inside Lelouch immediately, which made Lelouch shout out his name—

And god, hitting orgasm had never been so perfect for Suzaku. Not alone in his showers, not anywhere. Suzaku shivered and said, "Lelouch, Le _louch_ —"

Time froze again, for one second, as if it wished to take their side for once, rather than acting as the bane of them. One beautiful second, impressed there — as moments after Suzaku, Lelouch experienced the cataclysm.

Suzaku imprinted all of it. Lelouch and his fantastic heat. The sound of all Lelouch's cries, the faintly floral scent of his exertion, the way Lelouch clenched and trembled around Suzaku's persistent length, skin flushed crimson, his muscles all gone taut and flexed as he began coming, and coming… and the one vein standing out on the side of Lelouch's neck, as Lelouch writhed, and squinted shut those violet eyes. Lelouch's body quaked; Suzaku could _feel_ it, and Lelouch spilled, spilled a stream of his hot, sticky mess, into the hand Suzaku had snaked down to grip him and stroke and pump so it was done.

Lelouch collapsed violently back, shuddering, and now sobbing quietly, for real. There were tears Suzaku knew he possessed no power to stop. To see _Lelouch_ crying like that was something new and deeply shocking.

Suzaku blinked to clear his head, feeling like the room had just finished spinning. They both gasped for air. And Lelouch softly cried.

Suzaku registered the result of their coupling, in the sudden lull they had. His ears rang and his blood careened through him, but his body began to relax. Lelouch's sobbing abated as well.

Suzaku kissed Lelouch's hair. "Lelouch?"

He pulled out of Lelouch with a slow, wet slide. It made Lelouch's breathing hitch, eliciting another half-wanton moan. And then, while Suzaku's heart still wildly beat and felt full enough now to burst, Suzaku looked down – to peruse yet again the scene they'd created — recklessly. Bad idea.

But still. He'd fill his eyes up with Lelouch, memorizing Lelouch for as long as life let him.

Lelouch's lips were parted. He let Suzaku gaze at him. He still panted, his arms thrown back above his head on the pillows. A flush made his cheeks and his skin look more alive than Suzaku knew Lelouch would ever look again — and nothing, Suzaku thought, nothing that day and night had looked this beautiful. Not even white robes in the sunshine had stunned Suzaku as much as Lelouch did in these after-moments, under him.

Belonging to _him_ – regardless of the fact that he would leave.

Lelouch's chest heaved. That tongue that had so driven Suzaku mad flicked out just then to taste his lips, as Lelouch attempted to recover some sense and semblance of himself and the power of speech. "Suza…ku…." Weak and reverent.

Those amethyst eyes as they held Suzaku's mesmerized and pained Suzaku most. He almost looked away, but he couldn't. Lelouch's gaze glittered with tears of pleasure, tears of pain, regret… and of love.

Yes. That was it, wasn't it. Yes.

Suzaku really was stupid.

Lelouch looked simply beautiful… and Suzaku knew he was loved. Lelouch _loved_ him; to doubt it at this point would be sacrilege. Suzaku had never seen anything quite so evident, even without it being spoken in words. There Lelouch was, looking disheveled and euphoric, prone before Suzaku like he'd been prone before no one, ever… and hardly caring he was so. _Reveling_ instead, in the tangled-up sheets, and sweat, and come, as if he'd never wished he could be anywhere else.

If Lelouch did not love him, then would Lelouch have asked for this?

Suzaku's release had marked the curves of Lelouch's flesh between his legs, just as surely as the strawberry kiss bites, and subtle bruises, and long pink marks of the strokes of Suzaku's fingers up and down Lelouch had marked him there. And those marks, Suzaku knew, were echoed across his own back, too. But Lelouch just blinked languidly at Suzaku through hooded lids and long, dark eyelashes, and didn't want to hate Suzaku at all. Yes, yes, Lelouch did love him. And Suzaku… he loved Lelouch, as mixed as it was with Requiem's hatred.

And Lelouch hadn't wished Suzaku to kill him without understanding it.

A tear of Suzaku's patted on the pillows. This did not make having to lose Lelouch one whit easier. No. But maybe now, Suzaku wanted to think, in years later, the scars of this would heal smoothly.

Maybe he could even look back on this and take comfort, knowing he'd been truly loved. Knowing he had been able to love Lelouch back, as much as it hurt them both in the moment. As much as pleasure and pain danced, interchanged.

Lelouch sighed out a last, satisfied breath, and then beckoned Suzaku close to him. Suzaku settled next to Lelouch, to rest where they could hear the beating of each other's hearts, and perhaps sleep – bare, hot skin against bare, hot skin.

Lelouch vi Britannia _loved_ him.

Suzaku cried again, quietly, like he had cried inside the gazebo. He tightened his jaw and looked away, to wipe his eyes with one casual hand, while his emperor whispered, "Please don't leave tonight."

Suzaku knew he wouldn't. "I'm yours, Lelouch. Even though I'll kill you… or maybe because of it. I'm sorry the two us screwed up the world so much that the only option left is for me to finish the only person I've ever loved quite like this."

"I'm also yours forever, Suzaku — even in the afterlife. Know that. You are the only person _I've_ ever loved quite like this as well."

Suzaku laid down next to Lelouch. The flower that had burst inside his chest bloomed like a garden in sun rays, anointed by the light of the beyond — in the same way Lelouch had been that morning. For one more peaceful, final night.

Lelouch vi Britannia loved Suzaku… and Suzaku did not regret having loved him back.


End file.
